Ray Poytner of The Future Place Blog recently posted an article entitled "The Push/Push Dichotomy - or why most reportals fail." It considers the value of "research portals" — which, by the way, refers to web sites set up by research firms so that clients can, on their own, download and review the results of ongoing or recently completed surveys, usually before the research firm goes in and adds their insight/analysis to the data. The question is whether or not setting up such systems is as effective as research vendors send the results to clients directly.

My own experience is consistent with Ray’s — when I have in the past set up research portals at my company — or even uploaded the research to a central web site or other location where the user has to go and download it for themselves — I think the result has generally been that the research is ignored or receives spotty dissemination. With all of the work everyone has to do, very few people really have the time to veer away from their day-to-day activity to download — or even worse, generate — marketing research reports.

That is, unless they’re looking for something in particular. Ray makes a good point that there are certain types of research that do lend themselves to reportals. The key, then, is to know when a reportal is appropriate — and when it will really be used — and when it makes more sense to disseminate results using more active (rather than passive) methods.

Read Ray’s article at the Future Place Blog.